Old Fox still leads cubs in another foray

Lindsay Fox wanted to play down his role and talk up the generational change that has taken place in his Linfox family business.

He said the deal with Qantas to operate flights by the new airline Jetstar out of Avalon Airport was put together not by him but by management, meaning his three sons and daughter.

"It's all family. If you get the family all working together, it is amazing what you can do. This has involved every member of the family," Mr Fox said.

"David looks after the airports. Andrew is involved in the property side. Peter looks after the commercial reality. Katrina looks after the sales and marketing... and I'm just the old truck driver in the back of the truck."

As much as Mr Fox, 68, would like people to believe he stays on purely as his children's mentor and adviser, little has changed in the $1.2 billion-a-year transport, distribution, property and aviation business he started with one truck delivering heating oil and soft drinks 48 years ago.

He still turns up every day at the St Kilda Road office, still works more hours than most of the staff and still cuts the deals, like last year's $70 million truck purchase from DaimlerChrysler.

That he was behind the airline deal became only too clear at yesterday's launch when Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon described how his protege at Jetstar, Alan Joyce, having been wined and dined at the Fox mansion in Toorak, said how impressed he had been with the wine cellar. "He's got you," Mr Dixon told the young CEO.

The last time Mr Fox submitted himself to interviews at a launch of this magnitude, he and Solomon Lew announced their doomed intention to buy Ansett Airlines out of receivership.

The disappointment of that failure is all in the past. "Life is a series of events and you cannot worry about the past," he said.

This time he was there to speak up for Avalon and the advantages it gave people in the Geelong area and Melbourne's outer west. It had 2000 hectares of room to expand, the bay at the back door, a highway at the front door and a railway across the road. As well, it was close to the Great Ocean Road tourist region.

He said he used the airport to fly fresh food from the region to Asia and got it there as quickly as it was getting on to supermarket shelves in Melbourne. He was trying to persuade the authorities to move the wholesale fruit and vegetable market there, too.

Mr Fox said the deal with Qantas had been struck because both sides stayed and talked until they had an agreement, but when asked who had approached whom he could not remember. "Did I ask my wife out or did she ask me? I only know we got married a long time ago."

Finally the "R" word was mentioned. Would he ever retire? He laughed, shrugged and said: "I'll wear out before I rust out."